Buoyed by the encouraging demand for its vehicles, South Korean car major Hyundai has started adding to its workforce to ramp up production at its India facility. The company, which has a manufacturing plant in Chennai, is looking to hire about 1,600 to 1,800 apprentices to meet the demands of existing as well as future products, becoming one of the few companies to go for recruitment in the times of Covid-triggered economic adversities. A Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) spokesperson told FE that the company last week started the process to hire people for its Irungattukottai plants. The selected ones will be undergoing training at classrooms and on the job. According to the spokesperson, the company usually hires around 3,000 apprentice, but because of the lockdown, a large section of them went back to their hometowns. Though the company could bring some of them back when it resumed operations by deploying transportation, some still have not resumed work. “To fill that gap and meet the demand for workers for our upcoming product portfolio, we need more people and so the recruitment,” the spokesperson added.
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Hyundai had not laid off staff or resorted to salary cuts as the company is steadily ramping up production both for exports and domestic sales. On the contrary, it recently announced promotions for its technicians (the blue-collar workmen in the shopfloors). It is also in the process of firming up plans for the junior, middle and senior-level executive cadres. Hyundai recently said as demand has been picking up in India for its vehicles, it is planning to start a third shift at its Chennai plant. The company said it has clocked 75% sales in June 2020 against June 2019 and by the end of July, it is hoping to clock almost 90% sales.
HMIL director – sales, marketing and service Tarun Garg said the consumer sentiment has improved with reopening of the sales network. With demand for various models, especially the recently launched new Creta which received over 45,000 bookings since it launch, the company is witnessing positive signs in the industry. Garg also said the localisation levels are very high and the dependence on components from China is very low. The company’s supply chain is ready to meet the demand for increased components as the third-shift production is going to start soon.
Stressing that the Covid-19 pandemic has not impacted plans of the company’s upcoming launches, Garg said in the last seven months, HMIL launched four products – Aura, a sub-compact sedan in January, new Creta in March, new Verna in May, and now Tuscon, which is priced around Rs 22.30 lakh pan-India. Garg further said the industry has been showing resilience and the only worry was that the fresh lockdown announced by several state governments in the last one week may impact demand marginally. He said the demand is from across the geography, including tier-II and III markets and as far segment.
There are demand for entry-level hatchbacks, as people now prefer personal mobility, and SUVs. SUVs’ contribution to the entire sales was at 34% last year and it has increased to 50% now. Garg said diesel cars continued to do well despite the gap between petrol and diesel prices reducing across several regions in the country.
